Nauru Flag: Meaning, History, Colors & Pictures

Nauru’s national flag has a dark blue field, a narrow yellow horizontal band across the center, and a white twelve-pointed star below the band near the hoist. Its proportions are 1:2. Adopted at independence on January 31, 1968, the design continues under the country’s current name, Naoero.

Yes. The government confirmed the official designation Republic of Naoero in 2026, restoring the traditional name in international usage. The national flag retains its blue field, yellow equatorial band, and white twelve-pointed star. Nauru remains a familiar historical and search name for this same country and flag.

The Nauru flag uses dark blue, yellow or gold, and white. Blue covers most of the rectangle, yellow forms the narrow central band, and white fills the twelve-pointed star. The legal description names blue, yellow, and white without prescribing hexadecimal values or a numerical digital color standard.

The flag combines geography and cultural identity. Its blue field represents the Pacific Ocean, its yellow band represents the equator, and its white star marks the island south of that line. The star’s twelve points represent the twelve original tribes, bringing the country’s location and people into one design.

Blue represents the Pacific Ocean surrounding Nauru. The same blue appears above and below the yellow band, forming two equally high blue areas. This makes the ocean the background for the equator and island symbols, rather than a separate emblem confined to one part of the flag.

The yellow stripe represents the equator. It runs horizontally across the middle of the blue field and is much narrower than either blue portion. The white star sits below it because Nauru lies south of the equator. Gold is another description used for the stripe in official explanatory material.

The white star represents Nauru, and its twelve points represent the twelve original tribes. It belongs below the equatorial stripe on the hoist side. The points are straight and evenly spaced in the conventional drawing, producing a single twelve-pointed star rather than twelve separate stars arranged in a group.

The government lists the twelve tribes as Eamwit, Eamwitmwit, Eaoru, Eamwidara, Iruwa, Eano, Iwi, Irutsi, Deiboe, Ranibok, Emea, and Emangum. The star commemorates all twelve original tribes. Government accounts identify Iwi and Irutsi as extinct tribal lineages, but their places remain in the flag’s symbolism.

Some reference accounts connect the star’s white color with phosphate, a resource central to Nauru’s economic history. The statutory flag explanation instead explicitly identifies the star with the island’s position and its twelve original tribes. The phosphate interpretation should therefore be distinguished from the meanings actually stated in the law.

The flag places the island’s white star below the yellow equator against the blue Pacific Ocean. The government describes Nauru as about 42 kilometers south of the equator. The design communicates that relationship symbolically; the star’s distance from the band is not a geographic scale or an exact latitude measurement.

The flag’s height-to-length ratio is 1:2, so its length is twice its height. The same shape is described as 2:1 when length is stated first. A flag 60 centimeters high is therefore 120 centimeters long, and every stripe and star dimension must scale with that rectangle.

In the documented construction, the yellow band is one-twelfth of the flag’s height, equivalent to one-twenty-fourth of its length. Each blue portion is eleven twenty-fourths of the height. On a 48-by-24 grid, the horizontal layers measure 11 units blue, 2 units yellow, and 11 units blue.

The star’s center is one-quarter of the flag’s length from the hoist. This artwork follows the published construction in which its upper tip touches the lower edge of the yellow band. With an outer diameter of one-third of the flag’s height, the center lies seventeen twenty-fourths of the height below the top.

Draw twelve outer points at equal thirty-degree intervals, with one point facing upward. Alternate them with twelve inner points halfway between those angles. In the construction used here, the inner radius is half the outer radius, and the outer diameter is one-third of the flag’s height.

The supplied screen artwork uses blue #012169, yellow #FFC72C, and white #FFFFFF. Specialist references commonly report Pantone 280 C and 123 C for blue and yellow. These references should not be confused with statutory RGB values: the flag schedule names the colors but does not prescribe numerical color codes.

Nauru adopted its national flag on January 31, 1968, when the country became independent. A later specification document is reported as dated May 31, 1968. The national-symbols protection law commenced in 2018. These dates concern introduction, construction documentation, and legal protection respectively, rather than three different flag adoptions.

The flag is documented as the result of a local design competition before its introduction at independence. The official and institutional accounts examined do not establish a named individual as its sole designer. Reports linking its preparation to the Australian manufacturer Evans should not be converted into an unsupported personal attribution.

Before independence, Nauru was a United Nations trust territory administered by Australia on behalf of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Its 1968 flag belongs to the independent republic. Flags of administering powers, local proposals, and official service flags should be identified separately from that national design.

The Naoero National Anthem, Emblem and Flag Protection Act 2018 defines the flag through section 13 and Schedule 3. It also addresses display, ceremony, mourning, commercial use, and disposal. The consolidated text incorporates later amendments and the Naoero name, while retaining the familiar three-color design and twelve-pointed star.

The basic national design introduced in 1968 remains the design in the current statutory schedule: blue, a central yellow stripe, and a white twelve-pointed star near the lower hoist. Later legislation and the adoption of Naoero as the official country name should not be described as replacements of that flag.

Section 16 permits the flag to be displayed at places including schools, homes, institutions, buildings, and events. Whether on public or private premises, it must occupy a prominent position. The section also permits use in national sporting or entertainment attire, while other provisions regulate production and commercial uses.

Section 15 requires people in a public place or area where the flag is being raised or lowered to stand still until the ceremony is complete. It also requires drivers in or entering that area to keep their vehicles stationary during the raising or lowering of the flag.

Section 17 provides for half-mast display as a token of mourning for the funerals of the President, a Cabinet Minister, and other people approved by the Minister. In this Act, Minister means the President. Actual mourning dates and operational instructions should come from the relevant official announcement.

Sections 20 and 21 require prior written ministerial approval for specified commercial uses and production involving the flag or its parts. These provisions cover advertising, logos, trademarks, and depiction on merchandise or other items. An available image file does not itself supply that approval or settle the applicable legal requirements.

Section 23 addresses a flag that is no longer fit for use or display. It provides for dignified disposal by burning in private after Cabinet approval has been granted. This is a specific legal disposal procedure and should be distinguished from public destruction or other conduct covered by the Act’s separate prohibitions.

Viewed from the opposite side of an ordinary flag, the design appears horizontally mirrored. The star is below the stripe near the viewer’s right, because the hoist is now on that side. The yellow band remains horizontal and centered; this reversed view is not a separate national flag design.

A reported London 2012 event convention turns the complete Nauru flag ninety degrees clockwise for vertical display. Under that convention, the yellow stripe becomes vertical and the star appears in the upper-left portion. This is a documented event example, not a universal vertical-hanging instruction stated in the flag Act.

Look for three features together: a dark blue rectangle twice as long as it is high, a thin yellow stripe through the center, and one white twelve-pointed star immediately below the stripe near the hoist. The stripe-and-star relationship distinguishes this flag more reliably than any single color viewed alone.

Start with a rectangle 48 units long and 24 units high. Draw a two-unit yellow stripe centered vertically, leaving eleven blue units above and below. Place the star center at (12, 17), measured from the upper left, with outer radius four and inner radius two units.

Avoid a thick stripe, a centered or misplaced star, the wrong number of points, stretched proportions, and unsupported official color claims. Keep the rectangle at 1:2, the stripe at one-twelfth of the height, and the twelve-pointed star below the stripe near the hoist, using a clearly documented construction.